When you love two things as much as fan fiction author slyfan1030 loves the Sly Cooper and SoulCalibur franchise, you can't resist the urge to have them both at once. Like the more "romantic" version of such a conundrum, the solution is often more trouble than it's worth.

What I admire most about slyfan1030 is his economy of words, something I have trouble with myself. Whereas one person might write "She was stupid", I write "She was relatively stupid, in a manner of speaking". See? Too many unnecessary words.

Slyfan1030 solves this problem at the very beginning of his crossover tale, "Souls and Thieves", by removing the need for lengthy character descriptions.

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This my first crossover fanfiction between my two favorite games Soul Calibur and Sly Cooper. All the Soul Calibur characters are wearing their Soul Calibur 2 outfits. Except for Siegfried and any character from Soul Calibur 3, they are wearing there Soul Calibur 3 outfits.

Who needs descriptions? If a character pops up you aren't familiar with, just Google image search. That's what it's there for.

From there slyfan1030 sets up the scene, once again leaving out any unnecessary text, like indications of who might be speaking at any given time.

Sly was once again on another heist, he just broke into a museum grabbed a shard that looks like it came from a sword and Carmelita was one his tail,"You can't escape from me raccoon!"Sly was doing his best dodging Carmelita's shots then crossed an alleyway losing Carmelita."Hey Bentley you there?" "I'm here Sly, you got the shard?" "Yes but I don't see the big deal it's just a hunk of metal." "I'm reading some evil energy coming from it, it's important that you take it to the safe house so I can analyze it." "Alright I'm on my way"

It's just like playing a Sly Cooper game, isn't it? Carmelita is on his tail, Bentley is working ops. Maybe this isn't fan fiction at all. Perhaps this author has stumbled upon the secret opening of the upcoming Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

Sly makes it back to the hideout unscathed. Bentley is there, having set up some stuff. Murray, Sly's hippo companion, is asleep on the couch with a pizza on his face. Oh that Murray.

As it turns out, the team of thieving animals got their hands on another shard just like the one Sly stole earlier that day. Could they possibly fit together in some way?

He hands it to Bently. Bently studied the pieces carefully then he put them together. "They fit!" Bently shouted hugging Penelope. Sly walked over to see "What does this mean?" Sly asked taking the pieces from Bently. "It means that if we find all of the pieces then I can have a full analysis"

"I still don't see whats the big deal.?" When Sly said that Murray quickly woke up with the pizza still on his face. "What are you saying Sly!" Sly was confused. "What?" Murray turned on the TV and their PlayStation 3. Popped in a game with the labeled 'Soul Calibur 3'. "You see all the power those things have!" Murray explained while still playing the game. "Murray do you expect us to believe that a game could explain anything, besides how far in that game are you?"

What can we deduce from this passage? Sly Cooper obviously has the original 60GB PlayStation 3 system capable of playing PlayStation 2 discs, as SoulCalibur III was a PlayStation 2 exclusive. The things you can learn just by paying attention and knowing way too much in the first place.

From there slyfan1030 somehow gets the characters to hop into a time machine, his economy of words so efficient that I couldn't follow. The point is Murray, Penelope, and Sly went back through time to an ancient land of some sort, Carmelita hot on their trail.

They manage to escape from Carmelita just after they got out of the portal. They stumbled on to their feet. Murray looked on the ground and saw the pizza that was on his face a few minutes earlier, he picked it up and was about to eat it.

"Murray you're not going to eat that are you?" Penelope asked

"Hay pizza is pizza" Murray ate the pizza in one bite as Penelope looked away in discus. Sly picked up his cane "You better enjoy that slice while it last cause there's no pizza in this time." Murray was stunned from Sly said "No pizza! Then I must find something just as good!"

And Murray runs off. Soon Penelope and Sly split up as well because slyfan1030 has plans to pit each of these characters against SoulCalibur fighters, even though he's only finished up to chapter two so far.

Miles away Sly manage to find a town. Knowing he needs to find a disguise he quickly took a cloak from a sales man without getting caught and rapped it around himself so it looks like he has a hooded cape. Sly took hours looking for some shards he even asked some people but told him about shards that he wasn't looking for at all. He decided to give up and look somewhere else but he spot ted something that cached his eye. It was a poster explaining a new exhibit at a museum, a large diamond that was said to of worth over 50,000 gold coins. Sly new that he couldn't pass this up.

Are you wondering why a town in the ancient past would contain a museum that is advertised with posters? Then you're obviously not in the correct mindset to read this story. Why don't you go read USA Today or something, Mr. (or Mrs.) Reading Snob?

For the rest of you, Sly of course made off with the diamond, but soon a mysterious figure blocked his path.

He was casually walking on the street when suddenly a man walked in front of him. The man had a katana in his hand and a flag on his back. "Must thou steal for thy own selfish reason." Sly took a minute to figure out what he was saying. "I'm a master thief of course I will steal for my own reason and its not selfish reason either. I steal because its my family's legacy. Any ways why are we talking about this and who are you?"

Were this a scene in a movie mysterious Asian musical would be playing in the background during this exchange. Were it a movie the lack of punctuation would not matter either.

And now, the moment of truth.

The man took a pose. "It is I Yoshimitsu." Yoshimitsu was wearing his Soul Calibur 2 costume."Yoshimitsu eh'. Well I'm the worlds greatest thief Sly Cooper."

What follows is perhaps the greatest fight scene ever written.

Sly ran to hit Yoshimitsu, but Yoshimitsu dodged to the left and hit Sly back.

Sly tried climbing on top of the roof top hoping to attack from above. Yoshimitsu flew to the roof top with his sword.

Yoshimitsu ran to Sly then foolishly stabbed himself thinking he would also hit Sly as well. Sly was smart enough to use his combat dodge to go around Yoshimitsu.

The two ran at each other clashing weapons, Yoshimitsu flew over Sly and did a fire attack so Sly tried to block but the attach was too great, it hit Sly.

Sly threw a loud scream.

Sly thought of something, he threw an alarm clock. Yoshimitsu was gazed because he didn't knew what that was, giving Sly an opportunity to hit him with a push attack.

Yoshimitsu was growing tired so he tried to finish off Sly so he ran to Sly, he was ready to attack but Yoshimitsu spanned and disappeared then reappearing behind Sly and put his hand on Sly, absorbing Sly's health to his own.

At this point it looks like it could be the end for Sly Cooper. Yoshimitsu may wear a smiling mask, but he's not a combatant to be trifled with.

Yoshimitsu walked up to Sly and was about to hit him with a final attack."Evil or not DIE." Sly didn't know what to do he though of it but couldn't think of anything it was over. He was back in that position where he was when he was in that monster fist, ready to die. Yoshimitsu was about to attack but a shield hit Yoshimitsu's head. Yoshimitsu was knocked out. Seconds later Sly was also knocked out.

*blinks* What? Two girls with swords and shields drop in to save the day? I feel almost cheated. I was expecting blood, especially with such an evil-seeming Yoshimitsu.

So in the battle between the two thieves it's a draw. Why they were fighting don't bother asking I have no reason. You can guest who those two girls are. Next chapter will feature Penelope and Amy. And sorry if Yoshimitsu seems evil I wasn't trying too.

Oh. Well that explains everything.

Hit up the link below to read the full story for yourself, and bookmark it should that third chapter ever materialize. I would hate to think this will become known as slyfan1030's great unfinished work, because it's not all that great.